Funding denied for cancer patient

Alan Francis, 68, from Llanelli has been told doctors cannot have funding for a bone marrow transplant from a donor in Australia.

Mr Francis had been told by doctors the chances of finding a matching donor were 170,000-to-one, however, a perfect match was found on the other side of the world.

Mr Francis was diagnosed with leukaemia in 1998 and has beaten it twice. After a search for a UK donor, without results, a 43-year-old man in Austrialia was found in November last year.

After the transplant was scheduled to take place in four weeks, Mr Francis was told that funding had been denied.

He said: "The delay was nothing to do with the Australian, nothing to do with me, we were both okay because we had to have tests. It's enough worry to know what I've got to go through - let alone this."

The Health Commission in Wales would not comment on an individual patient.